whybother wrote:I think that the process is the wrong way around. First should be intent, then an additional penalty based on injury to opponent. Off the play and behind the play are clearly intentional, and deserve a fixed penalty. Maybe the additional penalty is based on the amount of time the opponent is out of the game: sort of an eye-for-an-eye type of thing. This type of play should be minimised before it happens in an attempt to eradicate it, and not merely punished after it happens.
If you are going to keep contending that this incident was behind the play, then you are saying that the shepherd was not within 5m, so that becomes not a sheperd but the instigation of an off the play incident itself. Ergo, Hoskins "got sloppy while defending himself from this attack". Which is bollocks of course.
Taking that out, the rest of your discourse seems sound to me. I've always thought that to change behaviour, you punish intent. Attempted striking should be equivalent to striking as a base charge, and maybe load some for damage caused where they connected.